So one of the big changes to DND 5E for ponyfinder was the loss of a lot of flavor because 5E doesn't really have much room for random tid bits of flavor. After our long and hard argument over in the 5E Didn't have what we needed board, and some fixing and suggestions for the races, me and my friend Strill sat down together and hashed out a couple of Class Archtypes to try and give more flavor and variety to the world of the Everglow in 5E.

These archtypes are untested and unfinished, so bear that in mind, but I would like to get some feedback, and maybe a group together to test them so that we can put them in the official 5E Ponyfinder book.

Without further ado, the three archtypes we have created so far. (I'll do it in three posts.)

Druid of the Sky (The Weather Stallion)

LEVEL 2 Druid of the Sky

Circle Spells

Your mystical connection to the land infuses you with the ability to cast certain spells. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th level you gain access to circle spells connected to the heavens.

Once you gain access to a circle spell, you always have it prepared, and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day. If you gain access to a spell that doesn’t appear on the druid spell list, the spell is nonetheless a druid spell for you.

^These are all currently in existence spells. Perhaps we should put together some Ever-glow spells to help out this list. Ex. All day weather spell that allows you to set the weather for the next three days.*Non-Druid Spells

Can Wild Shape into flying creatures at level 2.

You may use a bonus action to increase your speed for the turn by 5 feet per point of dex modifier. This leaves a contrail matching your colors behind you.

This ends up being about half as good as a rogue's ability to dash as a bonus action, and helps give flyers (the main race we had in mind while designing this class) that little extra speed boost that you could get through feats in Ponyfinder.

LEVEL 6

Moving through non-magical difficult terrain while flying costs you no extra movement.My main issue with this is that a lot of the super windy terrain that this is going to apply to, is gonna happen a lot more through magical means then anything else. So maybe this should add magical difficult terrain as well?

You have become so in tune with the subtle flows of air around you that your natural instincts brace themselves against incoming projectiles. You can use your reaction to deflect magic and missiles when you are hit by a ranged attack. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by 1d 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your druid level. You may use this a number of times equal to your wisdom mod per long rest.

With flyers having such a huge vulnerability to piercing damage, I wanted to give them away to get around that without removing it completely. Getting this at level 6 with +2 dex mod averages no damage from arrows that deal 13 or less damage, aka all but the luckiest of shots from shortbows. They however are still fairly vulnerable to the 1d10 potential of a crossbow. It also is limited in uses.

LEVEL 10

Immune to Lightning Damage, Resistance to thunder damage.

Plain, simple. You work with clouds, you eventually learn how not to get burned.

LEVEL 14

Know the current status of all weather conditions within a 50?? mile radius. +++ Something Else

Level 14 for druids is a social benefit. We're still having trouble figuring out the best way to give Weathermare a social benefit that makes sense in the context of both the show and the Everglow. Suggestions are more then welcome.

Showed this one off already, but thought it best to have all of them in the same spot.

Sorcerer Unification Bloodline

Level 1: You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill. If you are already proficient in Persuasion, you gain proficiency in a skill of your choice.Your proficiency bonus is doubled for Persuasion checks with fey creatures.Your Sorcerer spells which affect humanoids may also affect fey creatures.Awakened Ancestry: You gain the sub-race benefits of another pony race of your choice, except ability score increases.

Going over the major benefits of being the Fey Monarch, we realized that they were Diplomats, being able to speak for ponies of all kinds. Thus we gave them the Diplomacy proficiency, and double it with the fey themselves. We know it might be a front heavy for a level one... but clerics are a lot worst. Also, none of the Awakened Ancestry bonuses are more crazy then either the Draconian or Wild Magic bonus... except maybe Gem, but we figured we'd rather let that be then try and make a specific ruling for Gem

Level 6: Power of Friendship: As the one who will unite the pony races, you are at your most powerful with others of your own kind supporting you. As an action, an allied ponykind creature within 30ft. may give you a Friendship point, which lasts for one minute. You may spend a friendship point to give advantage to one of your spell attack rolls, or disadvantage to a single target’s saving throw against your spells. When your ally gives you a friendship point, they glow brightly and make a loud hum, giving away their location and preventing them from hiding.

Level 6 is the Power boost for attack in sorcerers. We wanted to fit the friendship/diplomat theme in, and thought this was a great way to do it, and still make it a viable and desirable attack option. Raise your hooves to give Goku all your power for his Spirit bomb!

Level 18: Fey Monarch: You gain Resistance to physical attacks from non-magical weapons, except those made of cold iron.You cease aging, and gain eternal youth. You have advantage on Persuasion, Insight, Intimidate, and Deception checks against fey creatures.Your allies may give you friendship points from up to five miles away.

A True True Friend can help you from Five miles Away! Nothing super fancy, just classic Fey and Sorcerer High Level Stuff.

The flavor text for this one needs some serious work, but the abilities we think are solid. We did however take some liberties, as while we understand that Nightmare moon and Luna are not in fact the same being in the Everglow, the idea that Luna and her Paladin's still had a "Dark Side of the Moon" as it wore bleeds through, and we really like it.

Warden of the Night

Oath of the Warden:We'll fill this out eventually

When using your Divine Smite ability, you deal an additional 1d8 damage against shapeshifters, monstrosities, and aberrations instead of undead and fiends.

The wardens are defenders of the night, not slayers of the unholy, so we changed what creatures they interact with when you hit level 3. My only complaint is that it changes you from being anti-undead on level 2 to anti-monsters at level 3, but I think its fine.

3rd Level

Sacred Weapon. As an action, you can imbue one weapon that you are holding with positive energy, using your Channel Divinity. For 1 minute, you add your Charisma modifier to attack rolls made with that weapon (with a minimum bonus of +1). The weapon also emits silvery bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light 20 feet beyond that. If the weapon is not already magical, it becomes magical for the duration. You can end this effect on your turn as part of any other action. If you are no longer holding or carrying this weapon, or if you fall unconscious, this effect ends.

Turn Horrors As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer censuring shapeshifters, aberrations and monstrosities, using your Channel Divinity. Each shapeshifter, aberration or monstrosity that can sense you within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage.

A turned creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you. It also can’t take reactions. For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there’s nowhere to move, the creature can use the Dodge action.

In this instance, we thought the Oath of Devotion was perfect and just swapped turn undead to turn monsters of the night.

Some spells we're not completely certain on... and you can see a little bit of the dark side of the moon bleed through the spell list.

7th Level Aura of Clarity: The insight of your goddess grants you clarity of thought that pierces through magical lies and deception. You and allies within 10 feet of you gain advantage on saving throws against illusion and enchantment spells.At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Not as strong as the Oath of the Ancients, but a big thing in ponyfinder about Wardens was their ability to cut to the heart of theings, and we thought this was an excellent way to do this.

Psychic damage isn't super popular, mostly on aberrations, things Wardens are designed to fight. The Moon Princess watches over the minds of all her Wardens. Blind sense is fairly strong, but so are the other Paladin's level 15 stuff, and we wanted to push more on the idea of, Moonlight peels away all shadows, and blindsense helps instill that ideal, that everything around them is shown in the moonlight.

20th Level As an action, you assume the dual nature of your goddess for one minute, or until you lose concentration, (as if you were concentrating on a spell). To your enemies, you become that which even monsters fear. To your allies, you become a shining beacon. You gain the following benefits:*To your allies, you glow softly with a silvery aura, emitting bright light in a 30 foot radius.*To your enemies, you become a slavering void emitting darkness in a 30 foot radius.*As a bonus action, one enemy within 30 feet must make a Wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they are frightened for the duration of this ability, even if they are immune to fear. Creatures normally immune to fear may make a saving throw at the end of each of their turns to end this effect early. Once you use this ability, you may not target the same enemy with this ability again until you finish a long rest.*You and all allies within 30 feet are under the effects of the Bless spell.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

This sprang from two ideas. 1st, the idea of becoming the boogyman's boogyman. The 2nd was the Tantabus. I really like this ability. Its probably the thing I'm most proud of in these three archtypes.

Cursory glance only at the moment, but I like these. Maybe the control weather spell once per day without preparation or components for the Druid of the Sky 14th level ability, just to give them the ability to run the weather in an area, particularly when working together. (That might be overkill, but between a 2nd level spell at will and an 8th level once per day with its general restrictions still in place, it's a hard call to decide which is more powerful.)

I think you'd be better off just adding to Divine Sense than swapping things out for the Warden of the Night. The 20th level feature is the only one of the Paladin capstones that you can lose early with a failed concentration check and the debuff ability of it requires your bonus action each turn, so a slightly stronger low-level ability throughout your career should be fine.

Noon Shadow wrote:Cursory glance only at the moment, but I like these. Maybe the control weather spell once per day without preparation or components for the Druid of the Sky 14th level ability, just to give them the ability to run the weather in an area, particularly when working together. (That might be overkill, but between a 2nd level spell at will and an 8th level once per day with its general restrictions still in place, it's a hard call to decide which is more powerful.)

I think you'd be better off just adding to Divine Sense than swapping things out for the Warden of the Night. The 20th level feature is the only one of the Paladin capstones that you can lose early with a failed concentration check and the debuff ability of it requires your bonus action each turn, so a slightly stronger low-level ability throughout your career should be fine.

I like the Control Weather idea. Not necessarily as a role-play explanation of how pegasi control the weather, because it doesn't fit that, but as a display of personal skill on the part of the user. Control Weather lasts 8 hours, requires concentration, and wears off soon after it ends. From a setting perspective, 14th-level spellcasters are way too rare to be relied on for weather control across the whole country. I think it makes more sense that most weather control be from teams of pegasi working for days or weeks. I imagine this more mundane weather control as how the archetype fulfills its day-to-day duties up till this point.

As for relative power, the biggest source of derailed plots that I can see with Control Weather is to devastate cities and armies across a wide area. While it certainly could solve some problems, it would almost certainly cause plenty more, and the towns would probably have some way to mitigate the damage, so I think it's pretty appropriate for a level 14 social/exploration ability, at least in this universe.

The divine sense thing I can understand. I just thought that having that many things on their list would be a bit cluttered and detract from the theme.

For the capstone, I was trying not to make it too strong. The Devotion Paladin just gets 10 AoE damage per turn, plus advantage against spells from fiends, and with that as a reference, and two major parts to the ability, I wanted to make sure it didn't overshadow existing capstones.

Blaze as a Warlock patron. This Archetype is designed to reward you for attacking allies, non-combatants, and yourself. Obviously Blaze doesn't have any particular grudge against non-hostiles, but players will generally try go out of their way to avoid attacking anyone except their enemies - this Archetype tries to break you of that habit.

This is my personal favorite out of these archetypes so far, although I absolutely acknowledge it needs a lot of playtesting. It's also worth noting that this Archetype goes directly against D&D's assumptions of party cohesiveness. You would need a group that knows what it's getting into.

For the invocations at the bottom, Fire Whip is intended as a counterpart to the Repelling Blast invocation, but for Pact of the Blade warlocks. It pulls instead of pushing. Useful for setting up AoEs. Incinerating Blast is a slightly worse version of half the Great Weapon Master feat, because it also downgrades your damage type from Force to Fire, and damages you when you use it. The self-damage comes out to around 3 or 4 per turn after resistances for most of your career.

6th level: At Any CostBlaze demands victory without compunctions. If one of your spells forces at least one ally to make a saving throw to take half damage, all of that spell’s targets make their saving throws with disadvantage.

Maybe: Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest

10th level: CallousedYou gain resistance to fire damage.

When one of your abilities damages both a hostile and a non-hostile creature, not including yourself, gain immunity to Fire damage until the start of your next turn.

14th level: Blaze of GloryWhen a creature within 60 feet with Challenge Rating greater than 0 is reduced to 0 hp, you may use your reaction to deal 2d10 fire damage to that creature and all creatures within 15? feet of it. Creatures other than you who succeed a Dexterity saving throw take half damage.

When you are reduced to 0 hp for the first time after taking a long rest, you deal 10d6 Fire damage to all creatures within 25 feet of you, and 20d6 Fire damage to yourself. Creatures other than you who succeed a Dexterity saving throw take half damage.

Maybe add a limit to the number of times you can use the reaction: You can use this feature a number of times equal to ??. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Exclusive Invocations(These invocations require Blaze as a Patron)

Incinerating Blast: Prerequisite: Otherworldly Patron: Blaze

Your Eldritch Blast surges with fiery power - so much that it burns you too.

Eldritch Blast deals Fire damage instead of Force damage

When you make an attack roll with Eldritch Blast, you may take a -4 penalty on the attack roll. If you do, deal 2 fire damage to yourself, and if the attack hits, you add an additional +10 to the attack’s damage.

Fire WhipPrerequisites: Otherworldly Patron: Blaze, Pact of the Blade

Your pact weapon sprouts a long tendril of fire which pulls enemies to you. When you attack with your pact weapon you may gain all the following benefits:'

Your reach becomes 15 feet.

You pull your target 10 feet towards you in a straight line when you hit.

Strill wrote:This is my personal favorite out of these archetypes so far, although I absolutely acknowledge it needs a lot of playtesting. It's also worth noting that this Archetype goes directly against D&D's assumptions of party cohesiveness. You would need a group that knows what it's getting into.

Contrariwise, when a villain is indiscriminate in their plans and actions, it makes them all the more fulfilling to beat. Same caveat as the Death domain, basically: this may work better for NPCs than most parties, but it deserves to exist.